The Cash Trap Killing Boutique PI Firms Before They Scale Up ft. Austin Kurtz and Brian Riley | Trial Lawyer View Ep. 97

PI firm founders scaling a boutique injury practice learn how Austin Kurtz and Brian Riley built $300K in fees within four months at KRLG Injury Lawyers.

Most small firm founders hold out for the big cases, assuming those headline settlements will carry the business, but Austin and Brian found that model leaves firms cash-poor while waiting. By engineering hyper-refined systems around small and mid-size cases — Calendly links baked into every intake, near-shore paralegals handling volume with precision, and a speed-first mandate that treats payment delay as a client harm — KRLG generates daily policy-limit settlements that fund operations while the larger cases mature.

Austin and Brian officially launched KRLG in March 2024, starting out of shared office space at Bob Simon's downtown Phoenix location before scaling to a team of 12-plus attorneys and 25-plus near-shore paralegals through Solvo within two years. Both founders took out HELOC loans as a financial backstop and negotiated amicable case splits from their prior firms, including Morgan and Morgan for Brian, to seed an early pipeline. On the technology side, they run a heavily customized Filevine stack, use Supio for AI-assisted medical record review, and track settlements firm-wide through a live Vestaboard that alerts the entire office each time a case resolves. They also hired two ABOTA lawyers within the three months prior to recording to mentor younger attorneys.

Attorneys thinking about co-founding a firm will hear a frank account of how partnership structure actually holds together under pressure: Austin and Brian avoided assigning rigid role boundaries, instead filling gaps as they appeared and formalizing a proper operating agreement only after early settlements revealed how quickly informal arrangements break down. Their approach to earning defense counsel trust, staying responsive on discovery and sending well-reasoned demands rather than adversarial correspondence, has generated referrals directly from opposing attorneys who later needed personal injury representation. Austin's time training under Tab Turner on products liability across 14 states and Brian's high-volume background handling policy-limit cases gave them complementary instincts that now define how the firm evaluates and works cases from intake through resolution.

Connect with Brian and Austin:
LinkedIn (Brian)
LinkedIn (Austin)
KRLG Injury Lawyers
Facebook (KRLG)

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Brian Riley 0:00

The largest cases and the largest fees, if you combined all of them, would probably be less than 3% of the firm's total revenue. And that's just because I think our systems, especially on the smaller than mid-sized cases, are so refined and so tight that every single day when we check the mail, it's a lot of policy limit settlements coming in every single day. And that's really what keeps the firm alive, but also allows us to be profitable.

Austin Kurtz 0:25

I would send Brian cases. I'd be like, ah, no, this isn't the case for me. Brian's like, what do you mean this isn't the case for you? I'll make money on this all day. And I was like, I don't know how he's making money on those cases. And now we're together, Prof. Brian, he's taught me how to make money on those cases. And I've made a lot of success on smaller cases that I traditionally not take.

Jason Lazarus 0:41

That's Brian Riley and Austin Kurtz, founders and co-owners of KRLG Injury Lawyers. Four months after launching their firm, they generated $300,000 in fees. Their secret wasn't chasing blockbuster verdicts. It was building systems so refined that policy limit settlements started arriving every single day.

Austin Kurtz 1:09

I think utilizing near-shore hiring has allowed us to scale while people are jumping straight to AI.

Jason Lazarus 1:15

In this episode, you'll learn why holding out for big cases leaves boutique firms cash poor, how waiting on large cases drains firms' resources fast, and how hyper-refined systems process small and mid-sized cases at scale. I'm Jason Lazarus, and this is Trial Law Review.

What made Brian and Austin leave big law to go boutique?

Jason Lazarus 1:37

So you guys launched Curtis Briley Law Group in early 2024. Both of you had spent years inside bigger PI firms and big law. What did each of you see from the inside that convinced you the boutique trial ready model was the right bet for your future?

Brian Riley 1:55

Man, that it's funny because it's a good question because actually Austin and I, I think our backgrounds were pretty different in terms of kind of how we were molded to become the attorneys that we are today. Um I think, you know, my background was a little bit more in the, you know, just like you're kind of uh red car, blue car, accident cases, you know, um premises liability cases where maybe not the sexiest, sexiest of liability or the sexiest of damages, but you find a way to get into the into the uh details and get a great result for the client. And it was kind of done for my entire career at a very fast pace um type environment. I think, I mean, Austin can speak for himself himself, but like, you know, he was probably in a position where he had a little bit more uh ability to like be a little more selective on the cases that he was going to handle and probably had a smaller caseload. But I think, you know, in doing what I did over my 10-year career before starting Kurtz Riley, and probably also what Austin did, we both had um opportunities to go to trial and realized that, you know, even the people who have most trials underneath their belt aren't necessarily as polished as you would imagine. Um, you can go there great. Um, it's kind of one of those things where when you get into it, you kind of realize everyone's just trying to figure this shit out. And it's like every single case, no matter who you're with, it's like, oh wait, like I don't know that, you don't know that, we really don't know this, we need to go figure this out. And uh that kind of gives you a lot of confidence um when you get a few trials under your belt and you start learning, you know, what you could potentially do. And and that was sort of kind of part of the way that we ended up getting together in the first place.

Austin Kurtz 3:43

100% Brian's right. Like, put it simply, I think we both saw gaps in like lack of technology uh being used, at least from my side, lack of tech aggressively, uh, lack of speed and lack of fun. Um it just wasn't fun. You know, one of our mentors is Bob Simon. Bob's like been awesome for us and helped us grow a lot. But Bob kind of was the first lawyer in the space. It was like, why can't you practice in a t-shirt? Ask art. Why can't you have fun doing it? Why can't you enjoy what you're doing? Why can't you ask that question? Why can't you do that? And started making us see it differently um before and then during and kind of helped us build accordingly. And so I think we saw a gap in the market where we're like, look, if we can do this, utilize technology, we both are workhorses. Brian's probably the only person I've ever met that can work more than me. I like I I pride myself on being a a workhorse, and uh Brian is just right there with me. We're always going. And so we're both already working that hard. Like, why not do it for ourselves? And we have fun doing it. I mean, we really do have fun with everything we do, the branding and the practicing. It's all just it's a good time. Like, we don't take ourselves too seriously, the work serious, but like the practice itself, like you don't have to take yourselves too seriously to be successful.

Jason Lazarus 5:03

Have you noticed how most conversations about law firm growth stop at intake, marketing, and trial results, but rarely addresses what happens after resolution. That's the gap Synergy focuses on. We partner with personal injury law firms to manage the operational side of healthcare lean resolution and compliance, bringing structure and clarity to one of the most overlooked but costly parts of what your team does day in and day out. If you're thinking more seriously about operations beyond the courtroom, you can explore Synergy services through the link in the show notes or by scanning the QR code on the screen. Now back to today's conversation.

How do you balance fun firm culture with the seriousness of personal injury work?

Jason Lazarus 5:40

This idea of being able to have fun, not being as serious in terms of just your uh not not necessarily a trial, because obviously that's serious. Being a lawyer, I I understand, you know, that that is serious. And being someone who's been through a personal injury myself, I've been through the entirety of that kind of a case. It it is very personal, very serious. But this idea of bringing some fun to the work, you know, how do you guys make that a thing with balancing the seriousness of what you're dealing with?

Brian Riley 6:19

We have a team approach for sure. And I think between Austin and myself, and especially with the attorneys, we do a really good job of celebrating our wins. Um so many times people in our office are going above and beyond for clients. And many clients realize what's going on, and many clients are obviously super, super grateful um for the results that we're able to get them, but occasionally, you know, clients don't see it that way. So it's important for us to, you know, celebrate an attorney in our office or even each other when we get a great result for a client. We know it's a hard case, we know there's issuing causation, liability, damages, what have you. And you still find a way to get a result for a client that you can be proud of. And um, maybe it's not gonna go on the Instagram, maybe we're not gonna put it on the LinkedIn, but if we can sort of celebrate each other and congratulate each other um for doing a good job, I think that's a big deal. One of the cool things that we have in our office, what's that thing called a Vesta board, Austin? It's right outside my office. Um, and essentially we it's this cool like uh display and it kind of rattles and gives letters and different things. So when someone visits our office, like Jason, when you visit our office, we'll say, Welcome, Jason Lazarus, and you know, the whole office will know who's there and who's visiting. But every single time, you know, someone in our in our system, you know, inputs the settlement and moves the case to you know, settled, all of a sudden that board starts rattling. And it's like the whole office looks and sees, okay, he settled a case and how much was it for? And of course, you know, it's it's awesome when you see a huge number up there, and maybe it's one of our newer attorneys who has a six-figure settlement. Like we do a really good job of making sure to highlight that. And even when it's one of our more senior attorneys who resolves a case for let's just say, I don't know, $5,000. Like we get a little riz out of him or her just by kind of joking, like, hey, is that really worth putting it on the board? Um, but but in all in all, like every settlement, every result counts for clients, every circumstance is different. And, you know, we don't really don't discriminate and we're grateful to have the cases. But I think that's just one of the ways where we do a good job of really highlighting what's going on in the office all around. Even if we're just locked into our offices the entire day, people know what's going on just by having like really high communication.

Austin Kurtz 8:46

I think we're generally just a phone off though. I think that we're we're young, right? Brian and I are 10 years in, a little bit more than 10 years in each. And so with that, we've attracted other young talent. Um and the maturation of the firm most recently has been hiring on some more senior attorneys. We've added uh two Ebona lawyers to kind of help mentor uh the younger lawyers um within the last three months. We've added those. And um, I think that we involved the team, staff all the way up to attorneys in the marketing efforts and the wins and everything. I mean, they're all on the Instagram. They all die to go make a skit video. They think it's so fun. And that's a lot of our branding is just like advanced and social and fun and uh high energy, high resolves.

Jason Lazarus 9:34

I love that culture around winning. And we do that internally. Uh, every time there's a waiver or you know, a great result, it teams lights up, and you know, everybody on our team is celebrating that, hey, we've helped someone who is injured get more money in their pocket by either getting a lien waived or greatly reduced. And those kinds of things are part of what contributes to that atmosphere of one purpose, but also to celebratory taking it seriously, but also taking time to acknowledge, celebrate, and have some fun around what you're doing every day.

Brian Riley 10:14

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think if you don't, if you don't have that type of feedback being reinforced constantly in your office, it's it's really easy to see um, you know, people start to kind of get uh checked out. We definitely want to create an atmosphere of like positivity and what we're doing matters because it does get a little monotonous sometimes. I mean, I have been joking for a long time. I think I've settled enough $25,000 policy limit cases in my career. I think I can move on to something else. But, you know, I'll probably settle another one after this call. You know, it's like whatever. It's like I'm never gonna get sick of it. But like at the same time, uh, you know, maybe I can find a way to uh push those cases down the line. It's hard though, and and maybe this really connects to your world. You know, Arizona is a non-disclosure state, and that's where we practice mainly. So, you know, when we're typically getting a lot of our referrals from other law firms that are stuck on cases or need help, we understand what the liens might be, but we don't necessarily know what the policy limits are on the other side. And sometimes the biggest cases have only there's really no insurance to pursue, and maybe there's just 25,000. At other times you've got maybe a smaller case, but you know, you you end up getting into litigation or something like that. There's a $1.5 million policy on the other side, and you're like, if I could take these facts and this client in this case and move it over here to this policy, things would be a lot easier and a lot better for everyone involved, and then you know, swap it for the smaller one, but it doesn't work that way.

Jason Lazarus 11:44

Yeah, unfortunately, uh that's not the reality of this stuff. Because it's like, I mean, all too often you see just when I got hit, the guy who hit me had like a 10K policy. Thank God I had a lot of UM stacked, and uh that was what compensated me for the significant injuries that this guy caused, because there's so many people driving around with small policies, and that's the unfortunate reality. And we see that all the time with the work that we do. It's the unfortunate reality. Brian, I wanted to ask you because you you spent close to a decade at some well-known firms, uh, one that's uh

How did Brian and Austin's backgrounds shape decision making and case selection?

Jason Lazarus 13:02

right here in my hometown, um, one of the largest or claims to be the largest. I think they are the largest. Um I I'm curious though, after seeing how case management worked at a high-volume shop like that, what did you specifically decide not to do when you co-founded the firm?

Brian Riley 13:23

When we co-founded, when we started the firm, Curtis Riley, I don't want to say the bad, but like we took all the good and the bad, if that's how you want to say it, and we analyzed it and we said, you know, what parts do we want to replicate when we start Curtis Riley? And what things are they doing at our prior firms that we understand from the business side of it, but maybe we want to tweak it to become a little bit more our style. Me personally was more about just making sure that litigation caseloads in a uh amount of cases in litigation per employee or per attorney were kind of set up in a way that was a little bit more manageable. Um, and also taking a little bit of a more laid-back approach when it comes to working with opposing counsel. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, Austin and I were in t-shirts most of the time. We always have a suit ready to go if we need to throw one on for an intake or if we get called into a hearing. But I think we do a better job of earning the respect of defense counsel just by working with them. And I think they appreciate seeing our name on pleadings when they get assigned from the insurance company because they know that we're gonna be a firm that's gonna be on time with our disclosure statements, on time with our discovery responses. We're gonna give, you know, reasonable, well-thought-out demands and mediation statements. We're gonna get experts, we're doing all the things that you typically see, but you're not gonna get a lot of nasty gram emails from us. And we're also really about trying to work out the case based on the merits, not just on some, you know, crazy technicality or anything like that. And to be honest with you, we get a lot of referrals from defense attorneys, right? I mean, and that's probably for myself and Austin, is one of the you know greatest compliments with when a defense attorney says, Hey, I have a friend who was in an accident. Can you take care of them? And I think this year I've already re represented three or four defense attorneys on their separate accident cases where they got re-arended or T-boned and they needed help on their case. And it's funny, you bet your ass. I talk with them once I open up their first party policy. I'm like, You guys really only have $50,000 in uninsured or underinsured? Like, what are you doing? You know, like don't you see cases like these every single day? Like, you got to protect yourself. But that's sort of, I think, the attitude that Oss and I have taken uh in terms of maybe coming from our past firms and just making sure that we can be prompt and um we're very responsible, like hyper-responsive with defense counsel, which means keeping the litigation like isos a little smaller, and then also just giving like the most respect, probably too much respect sometimes, to uh our opponent because we want to be the type of firm that you know they they call when they need somebody or from family or friend and member needs somebody.

Jason Lazarus 16:11

That's smart business philosophy. I mean, professionalism goes a long way and civility and I I know, you know, I I still handle some things in in here in Florida through my law practice where I litigate with uh Florida Medicaid. And you gotta approach that professionally and with respect because the scorched earth mentality, I I I just don't know that it gets you anywhere at the end of the day. And then when you need something, hearing needs to be moved around because you know, schedules change and yeah, you don't get the pushback that you do if you're just being a total jerk to your opponent. Yeah. I mean, we all have a job to do. So uh Austin, you you trained under Tap Turner in product liability and built litigation experience with trial firms um in your jurisdiction. How did that combination of work in products specific and big law discipline shape the way you have approached the case selection for your firm?

Austin Kurtz 17:14

I think Brian hit it on the head earlier. It's like I was absolutely way more selective. Before Brian and I got together, I would send Brian cases. I'd be like, ah, no, this isn't the case for me. Brian's like, what do you mean this isn't a case for you? I'll make money on this all day. And I was like, I don't know how he's making money on those cases. And now we're together. I like really, I mean, Professor Brian, he's taught me how to make money on those cases, and I've made a lot of quite a lot of success on smaller cases that I traditionally not take. I think that like I would disagree with case selection issues on there and what I learned, but I do think that there was a lot of benefit um from working in those capacities. I've been really grateful to have um some amazing mentors uh in practicing. I I started at Playtrip Gauge in Denver and worked with some great lawyers there and and saw traditional uh big law and uh had my writing torn apart uh in ways that like I try to tell our attorneys that they're so lucky that I don't do to them what I went through because it was exhausting. But at the same time, I will text those attorneys that I worked under and be like, hey, like I am so grateful that I went through a boot camp with you guys because it made me so much better and and um fighter. Uh I worked commercial litigation before in those capacities. And so now when I have a defense lawyer trying to do the big block shit with me, I'm like, dude, come on. Like I've I've done this, I know exactly what you're doing. Like, just stop. And then alternatively, like working after BladeRup, I worked with Ty Tabor at Aiken Shank and uh Ty again at Gallagher and Kennedy and a bunch of great attorneys at Gallagher and Kennedy, and we brought Ty over here, and so now Ty's training a bunch of our young attorneys over here, which is really cool. Um, and then Tab uh working with doing products. I was during COVID, I was doing products with Tab all across the country, pro hawked in like 14 states or something crazy. Um, because everyone would send Tab as products cases, and he was uh Turner Associates, he was Tab Turner and I was associates, me and one other guy. Um and Tab is just one of those brilliant kind of human beings that that knows how to do it. He taught by doing a a lot more than taught by telling. Um, but I had the opportunity to try a case with him, uh, which was really cool because we would kind of debrief it every night, and then after the trial, we went through all right, what did we do wrong? What did we do right? How do you prevent that in the future? And like those moments are are priceless. Um and like, I mean, best advice to anyone who's our vintage or younger and like trying to get into it, is like, I mean, I really do think getting the right mentors is so um important. And I mean, we like Bob and Mara are are good friends with good mentors too. Like when we have trial questions and workup questions, like we'll go and ask them, Hey, what would you do on this? Who would you call? Why would you do it? And a lot of time we're bullshitting with each other and buddies and joking around, but like when it becomes serious, it's like, hey, I really like how did you do this? How did you get those results? How did like they just give the feedback that's so great? And so Brian and I both try to give that back to young attorneys in town. Whenever someone asks, like, I never say no to coffee, I never say no to a LinkedIn message. Like, if someone wants to go and pick my brain, I'm flattered that they think I know anything to offer. But I that was always given to me anytime I asked a question. And so having the opportunity to work at those firms and get those relationships and get those opportunities and that hand-on training. Um I mean, it really did shape a lot of how I practice and do stuff. You pick, well, I like what he does. I don't I don't like this part, I like that part, and we just kind of pick and choose. It's like building a superhero with all their different talents. It's pretty cool.

Jason Lazarus 20:46

You know, for most people when they're starting a business, and I know I experienced this myself when I started Synergy,

What did the first six months look like financially after launching the firm?

Jason Lazarus 20:52

is I underestimated kind of the runway uh that I needed financially to start the company, because i if you've never been in charge of all the financial decisions, when it starts piling up on you, you're like, oh my God, and and looking at, well, when it how do revenue start to flow and how's everything cash flow? What did the first six months look like for you guys financially? And you know, how did you kind of get through all of that, especially not having the safety net of you know, what you had before, which was being with established firms?

Brian Riley 21:33

I'll um Austin answer this one first, but I'm interested to see if he's gonna tell a funny story or not, and then I'll follow up with the funny story if he doesn't get it. I don't know that I have the funny story.

Austin Kurtz 21:42

I I know that we both had or both both our firms were were very amicable when we were leaving. We've worked out, hey, these are our cases. And Friend and I were both pretty good at originating work, and so we're like, hey, this is our work, this is where we're gonna go. And they were cool with that, and that allowed us to know we had some sort of runway of cases. Um, but you know, if you look at KRLG now and you look at where we were, the strategy was not like, hey, how are we gonna bankroll a firm of 12 attorneys and a full staff? Like the thought was how are Brian and I gonna go work a law firm out of the back of Bob Simon's office downtown in Phoenix for free and like just enjoy life? And how are we gonna get cases? Well, we'll just like go do our thing and go out and be everywhere and just go to events and suddenly case will come in, maybe we'll like make as much as we were making before. Like that was kind of the strategy. Let's just enjoy it a little bit more. And so um we both had good savings set up and like we'd been intentional with. our our savings before and we knew that we would be able to kind of get by based on the pipeline and we kind of thought like okay we'll just find a way to get cases. It just took off a lot quicker than we expected.

Brian Riley 22:55

Yeah and I and I think obviously you know Austin and I always said if you you know put us in a corner together we're going to bite, bite or chew our way out, whatever it takes. And like when you go out on your own, that's exactly what you're doing. You're putting yourself in a corner, right? There's no more, hey, you're you know you're getting paid every two weeks on Friday. Like all that stops as soon as you go out on your own. It's scary. But for anybody who's listening and interested in starting their own firm, yes, you know, having an amicable break with your prior law firm is a really good idea, especially from a perspective of, you know, let's make sure that clients are taken care of in a way of, you know, is this case staying or is it coming with me? Can we work out a deal to you know negotiate the fee back and forth, like what's best for the client? That's number one. Number two is I know Austin and I both took out a HELOC loan. So if you're a homeowner, figure a DOC loan and basically just got like a line of credit which was ready for us when we needed it. And when you are officially on your own and you've only got maybe a quarter of as many cases as you've had before, you become very intentional within those cases, those, you know, that smaller caseload and it can be a little bit easier to um drive the cases home, you know, get the policy limits offers in. And I know for a fact Austin and I did that. And you know we had I think I officially came over March of 2024 at my prior firm, Morgan and Morgan. I I stayed and made sure the manager was set before I left and then ended up coming over officially with Austin at the beginning of March 2024. We hustled hard on the cases that we had. We got a bunch of checks in um we had the HELOC loan ready just in case you know our bank accounts were going low. And sure enough a lot of cases banked and I think uh one of the members of either one of our families got a little excited on Amazon one night and they uh ended up having to hit the HELOC just to make sure that the credit card can get paid. But uh other than that I'm not going to name names but it was fun to you know be able to report to our wives and say hey you know like it's our fourth month in business and we've done $300,000 in fees that's pretty good, you know, and like our operating account set up and now we can pay for an employee and we can pay for an office and all that's super exciting to talk about with your family but it's important to you know if you have a family let them know it's not like that's my money. It's not like that's Austin's money. That's the firm's money. And at some point in the free future if you're the owner of the firm or partners at the firm, you're gonna figure out what you're deciding to pay yourself either in a distribution at the end of the year or at the quarter, whatever you decide to set it up. And you know that's that's definitely kind of a funny but cautionary tale that if you want to keep the firm growing, you got to you got to have a structure in place to make sure that's what's going to happen. And Austin and I also learned in our first year, especially when you were pulling in some big settlements I can't remember who said it but they were like if you talk to an attorney and get like a real operating agreement set up. Like our operating agreement was like a combination of chat GPT and like the first template I could find online. And like getting you know spending the five grand to get the operating agreement done was big because you know Austin and I know the rules you know it's like neither one of us can just on a win say hey we're paying five grand for this. So I think that's what it is. And so you know that means no charging we bought a sprinter van last year. Like that was a pretty big expense. And it's not like I can't just go down and and you know say hey put the sprinter on a credit card. Like you have to have a the decision has to be made in a formal way in order to prevent fights from happening later on. And we've been very uh good partners um I expect us to be good partners um we're heading to Cabo in two days so um we're excited for that and uh you know it'll be more fun and and celebration and and all that kind of stuff but good thing there's nothing in Cabo that costs more than five grand so we won't have any of those conversations.

Jason Lazarus 27:05

So you guys describe your firm as boutique and that that can mean a lot of different things.

How do you define boutique and differentiate from competitors?

Jason Lazarus 27:11

How do you define that operationally and how have you gone about defining it from a marketing perspective in terms of differentiating your firm from the others out there that you compete against?

Austin Kurtz 27:25

Yeah I think we're less boutique uh every day um than we were when we started um I think we are boutique in the sense that you know like when I think like like a lot of the times I've worked in places like Gowder and Kennedy did a good job of one of the things they described is like we have skill sets, big firm capacity, but like we treat you like a small firm. Like we we have confirmations that we're there and you can reach an attorney and everything. I think the word boutique in a similar nature in the sense that people can get a hold of us. We've built out really to make this a client first firm. Every attorney at the start of a case gives a calendarly link right to their client hey you want to book a call on my calendar don't tell me you can't get a hold of me you have a link that's evergreen you can book it whenever you want um that's like a very unique nature and and that's hard to do. Most lock firms kind of structure when you're doing a volume capacity will structure with like an attorney up top and a really big team and with that big team it's pretty hard for the client to get to the attorney because they just get stuck in the team and we've tried to avoid that. So we really built outs in here to um kind of attack uh each client with an opportunity to like really have a one-on-one experience um and be have that handheld from the start I mean look going through an injury stakes it is not something anyone wants um and there's a lot of talk of when you hear personal injury at scale and everything that this is just like a conveyor belt. You throw them on you go through and it's is what it is and and it's not I mean every injury is unique and different and every case is unique and different and while you can systematize so much of the process you still need a unique hand holding process to reach it.

Jason Lazarus 29:18

And so I think that makes us boutique in the sense that start finish any type of injury case we will take you'll get a full team you'll get an attorney assigned you they'll work it all the way up that's go to trial we are going to work it all the way um we're not a pre-lit firm we're not a litigation firm we are an everything firm we'll take it all the way um start to finish that calendar link is such a great idea because you know one of the biggest complaints is communication and giving the client the power to schedule that assuming they don't abuse it but your point I mean I you know that was kind of what I was getting at earlier when I was talking about my experience, you know, having a friend represent me because being a lawyer and being you know in this jurisdiction for 30 years, I knew a lot of trial lawyers, but it's different when you have a friend representing you but I think if you can give people that feel because of how important it is because of how shitty everything you're going through, having that ability to really connect with who's representing you is really important.

Brian Riley 30:27

I would agree with that too. And thinking about like maybe where we started um as a firm and where we're at now we've certainly realized you know like so when we started this is another funny story and they got our business cards and our email we had like all of our contact information for the firm and then we had our cell phones and uh that's changed right like so do I consider us a boutique firm for sure. But are we going to allow many or all of our clients to have our cell phones like we've made a decision not to do that anymore you know after receiving brand text messages and phone calls at 1 a.m on a Thursday night and we decided that's not looking that way we want for ourselves or our attorneys. But you do make sure to give all of our clients ample opportunity and ability to contact us. I know when you know a client signs on with our firm, obviously an attorney is signed right away you have a care legal and a legal assistant and those three people are in contact within the client with the client within 24 to 48 hours of time that they sign up. So that's like your first point of contact is you've got a team of three people. And if you're the client it's really a team of four people because the client's a huge piece of it. And as your case moves along once it resolves it actually goes to another department that specializes in finalizing, you know, which is you know kind of connecting with you guys, right? Where all of a sudden we're trying to find a way to resolve an arisoline and it has to we have to get that arisoline down and for one reason or another we can't figure it out. Well that's when we call synergy because those are the ones that you guys have you know the secret sauce. I don't know what it is. I'm trying to figure it out but you guys got the secret sauce to help those clients actually get paid what they deserve. And that's sort of our process. So you know and I think you know when we talk about boutique as well um if for some reason a client needs their case to go to litigation that goes to a litigation lawyer and the litigation lawyer and their team handles the litigation case. Some of us handle prelit and litigation but I think you know my preference is that litigation lawyers only do litigation work, prelit lawyers only do prelit work. And of course the trial lawyers should only do the trial work because that's how you get the best of the best and the best in each section or department of the case. And it's helpful giving the feedback downstream and upstream as the cases are going on. So that's sort of my that's sort of my uh take on you know what we're trying to create here. I think a lot of that's still in process we're only two years in um but if we did this again in the year or two, you know we you'd probably see hopefully more attorneys, more senior attorneys, more people with trial experience um part of the team, you know, sort of building our building our core group into uh the type of attorneys we want them to be in doing prep for this episode and kind of given where things are at right now I I

What does speed and tech actually look like inside KRLG's workflow?

Brian Riley 33:32

came across a a podcast uh episode called Speed Tech how Kurtz Riley built an explosive PI firm and when when you talk about speed and tech, what does that actually look like in your workflow today and where are you spending money on technology and where are you choosing to not spend it and stay away from one of the things we utilized extensively and we still utilize is our Filevine.

Austin Kurtz 33:59

I've been pretty loud look I think file vine is an amazing product. I think it gets better if you know how to edit it and clean it. I think our file vine is as good of a file vine as there is out there. And I'll say that loudly as for Filevine's customer service don't get me started but like you know that's a different topic and and they know how I feel about that as well. But the that was one of the things that made us quick initially is like our Filevine stack was really good and we still to this day will go back and edit Filevine maybe once a month. It used to be every day we'd go back hey this will be better. And Brian and I wind to cabo on Thursday for 60 plus people I guarantee there will be an edit made to Filevine from Thursday to Sunday that I personally do because we see something we fix it we go hey this just needs to be this and we do it ourselves. That is a tech approach that an older law firm has never done won't do it would never have one of the owners going on the back end and fixing it. But we know hey if we do this our reports will run this way and we'll be able to generate this dashboard from that we'll be able to get 1% better by doing this. That was the start there's this whole AI push right now obviously um and the in vogue answer is to say like oh I just have AI do everything. But I think that the reality is like AI is getting there and it's more there today than it was there yesterday and it will be there more there tomorrow than it was two days ago but it's still not there. One of the ways we've combated that is while everyone is going heavy AI we're building it we're doing it we're doing it certain facets we also rely heavily on uh Salvo which is a near shore hiring company we utilize and so we have 25 plus paralegals in Colombia the country that are fully bilingual and I will say loudly on stages like we did our big charity event razor in February and I was up there on a mic and it was like I put my 25 paralegals in Columbia against any of my Arizona paralegals like these they're amazing. They are so good at what they do. And so they're that good um and I think utilizing near shore hiring has allowed us to scale um while people are jumping straight to AI this is kind of that middle of like AI will get there. It will I've watched it do some amazing things we're big um we're advisors on Finch which we think is like a great company and we've watched Finch grow. I I know Virage has been on the pod like big big fan of Finch. I think Virage is going to do amazing things but I think as that goes allows us to keep up in a way that we're tech forward but we're not gonna sit here and lie and say oh yeah AI writes all our demand letters from scratch like you know I know some companies say that and they just don't and so like we have templates that it's a good file bind template that does demand letter and then it's good near shore hiring that cleans it and that's a speed and a tech push that allows the the templates allow the tech to push um but utilizing near shore is kind of the gap though.

Jason Lazarus 37:02

Yeah that's such a great blueprint you just gave because that we we actually have a a a team in Columbia as well and utilizing the right tech stack overlay with AI and some of these near shoring um types of solutions, you build all that together and you can get to a very efficient and profitable operation. Whereas as you said just just relying on one solution isn't going to get you there these days anyway and particularly AI is I mean AI is a beautiful thing. It's incredibly helpful but as you said it it's even I've got it trained on my writing and I've done a ton of thought leadership writing but it still can't do what I do. I I see that I see what it puts out there just like any of these solutions are not going to be out of the box able to replicate anything that you or I can pull out of our brain today. Maybe maybe another year or two that'll change I don't know but you know short term.

Brian Riley 38:08

Yeah I mean I think some of the most impressive parts of the AI that I've seen um and there's there there is a lot of very impressive companies benches out there of course that do some cool stuff. And I think utilizing the AI for attorneys is essential because it's the all of this is coming super fast. So it's like you need to get on the train in some facet. I don't really I don't think it really matters if you're on the you know the first aboard or the last aboard but get on the train as soon as you possibly can start implementing and using this stuff. Obviously negotiating with defense attorneys, right? Like finding ways to summarize the records, pointing to the records, showing the records, doing it in a in a presentable way that can be convincing and persuasive for them to bring it to their insurance adjuster and say, look, the old tricks ain't working where we're saying hey this is you know no causation or whatever. Like Brian's showed me six different ways in the records where you know he's finding objective evidence. Like we're not going to be able to pull this one off. We need to put more value on the case. That's one of the ways that I use AI. We have some AI uh like MedCron stuff built into our file vine we also use Supio um I've been really impressed with them and I've gotten a lot of value on using the AI tools to you know get the insurance companies and the adjusters to or the defense attorneys to you know put more money on the table for our clients. So I really like that stuff. And then also this is one of the things that I have not utilized enough with Finch is I mean how cool is it to have an AI receptionist call and open a claim and order the police report or basically open two claims order the police report and contact the health insurance and contact you know six different providers all at the same exact time in an instant using a uh uh you know a virtual AI assistant where you couldn't you know potentially have even one Arizona paralegal make seven phone calls in one day they can do it all at the same time within five minutes. So that's really cool. And I think that is what I'm super interested in like seeing develop because that's I mean talk about efficiency. That's that's massive. And like I really think and truly believe that when someone's hurt in an accident today and if their case is worth a hundred thousand dollars because of how bad that accident was today, it's our job as the attorney if they hire us to get them that money as quickly as possible. Because as soon as that accident happens that's when in my opinion they deserve that money. So you know the insurance company's game is to push that as long as you possibly can and you know why can't we get, you know, if the accident's been rolling on for three months then why didn't we get our client paid earlier? And that's kind of an aggressive and intense approach but that's the type of approach that the opposing side needs to feel because these people are going through significant pain and probably have their life fully turned upside down and the $100,000 policy limits offer that comes in today is going to be worth a lot more to them than in a year from now because this is when they really need it. So I think we kind of have that attitude in the firm of let's do everything we can to be as efficient as possible. And if that means using AI or you know near shore hiring or combination of all of it, whatever it takes, let's do it. And um we're really excited to see where AI goes but we're also very I think we're smart enough to realize you know two things whatever AI product we're analyzing, does it fit within our tech stack? Does it fit within our standard operating procedures right? If it doesn't fit, either we need to change our standard operating procedures to make it fit or maybe it's just not the product for us. And then the second thing is the price and the cost and how is it being billed to the client you know there's a lot of great AI tools that are being offered to us personal injury firms but I don't need a medical records review on a case that's worth 25 grand that they're going to pay me 25 grand on you know so like I shouldn't have to be billed for that particular case. I kind of like the a la carte model a little bit more where when I need something, like when I need a medical records review, I want to be able to click a button and I can go get that done versus being billed for every single case we sign up every single month and not using it on you know 90% of the cases.

Jason Lazarus 42:43

EMED are a really great point and I think it's worth repeating which is you know anything that a law firm does that is repetitive, administrative in nature that could be done by technology that would be faster, that reduces time on desk, that's an area to me that you know is where law firms should be looking at deploying any type of technology that can free up staff time to move cases more rapidly through the firm. It's um we just brought a uh solution to market that does the identification and verification of liens through a combination of AI and a human in the loop because you know law firms spend all this time and money with their staff performing that function that can actually delay disbursement if it's not kept up with and done timely, why not let technology do those sorts of things? And there's a myriad of other things, right? Things that you guys have explored Supio with all their solutions and you know things that are being built into the case management software systems, which are all very positive things that ultimately I think are going to help you guys deliver that result even more quickly for people that like you said really need that money now not you know a year and a half from now. You know I'm curious with with you guys being co-founders that kind of a structure two

How do two co-founders divide responsibility without breaking the partnership?

Jason Lazarus 44:18

people can break a lot of business relationships and and law firms. I'm curious how did you guys go about dividing up the responsibility between the two of you and are there any decisions you guys initially made together that you've now said, hey, you make that decision, I'll make this decision.

Austin Kurtz 44:38

I think we've gone through like a hundred different iterations of that honestly. You know here's the thing is like when we started a law firm A lot of people were like, Oh, you two of you, good luck. Or that's not gonna work, or yeah, my partner never worked. Like, I I've heard all that, but their partner wasn't Brian Riley. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Um, I'm sorry it didn't work for everyone else. It works really well for us. Brian and I are just like we were friends going into the firm and we've just become like brothers doing it together. Um, I don't know, it's just it's it works really well. At times, like, are we both like, well, I disagree or whatever? Yeah, but like we know that we're both trying to get the best for the firm, and so we're always dedicated to like how do we get there? Um, I just think that like I think it's something about like good luck, but like I just know that like we always say, Hey, shit could go so bad. And if everything goes bad, where do we go back to back to us fighting our way out of a corner? Like that's where we're meant to be. And so we just kind of have a way of like I'm protective of Brian, Brian's protective of me. I see stuff coming at Brian, and I'm like, hey, we need to do this, this, this, to protect you. He does the same for me. And we just constantly kind of figure out where the pressure points are, and the other one fills the void. And I don't know, it's never really been like uh like we've broken and been like you do lit, I do pre-lit or whatever, inverse, and and we've done a bunch of different iterations, and it always comes back to us both just doing it together. And there's certain things that like we just know kind of who to take what, but we just fill the gaps.

Brian Riley 46:12

I'd say it's pretty natural. Like we get copied on a lot of emails for business decisions and things like that. And depending on the subject matter, if we kind of will defer a little bit to each other, and if it's not, you know, getting decided, we'll figure it out together. But like, you know, Austin's got an incredible marketing brain, and uh, you know, the best thing that Austin can do is keep that thing kind of going. You know, when he gets a little bit too sucked in to having too many cases and too many things on his mind, like that's not that's really not a great thing for the firm because he needs to be able to obviously kick ass on his caseloads, which are to be honest, are higher value cases, and also have that creative uh going in the background at all times too. That's super crucial for the firm. And then for me, like I've got a pretty large capacity when it comes to work and you know, maybe kind of can be the bad guy in the office occasionally when it comes to having to make tough decisions, but I just kind of own that role. And and, you know, I think, you know, the other thing that's really important to me and Austin is we're very competitive with each other and also the entire office. I come from a football and a sports background, so being on a football team, that doesn't mean that you play every single play and you play every single down, and you're not you know, starting on offense and defense and special teams, like you have a role within the team. And, you know, when I was the starting tight end for most of my career, there was always a second string tight end. And the second string tight end, when he was on the field with me, those were his his you know, responsibility in that play was just as important as my responsibility in that play. Because even if one of us screwed up, that's going to screw up the play in backfield, most likely. So I think we kind of take that same approach where you know there's no real like first string or second string. It's just a matter of all being in this together, all trying to find a resolution for a client that makes sense and, you know, kind of, you know, every single day just fighting through it and you know, not being afraid to ask questions and make decisions and work together.

Jason Lazarus 48:26

Yeah, if you're gonna make a partnership work, that's the way you know it's it's gotta work. Uh I'm curious, is there one piece of conventional wisdom about running a PI firm that you guys have actively

What piece of conventional PI firm wisdom have they actively rejected?

Jason Lazarus 48:37

rejected at KRLG and what convinced you it was wrong?

Brian Riley 48:43

I got a crazy take on that. So the question was: is there one piece of conventional wisdom that you've been, you know, given before you started KRLG that you've you know decided is probably not correct? So this is kind of an interesting one that I realized a while ago, and I kind of knew it for our firm, um, but I didn't have the data to really support it. And I think part of the reason, I'm gonna get to what it is in a second, but I think part of the reason why we're at where we're at right now is because our our firm's kind of still in the baby toddler stages. We're only, you know, just over two years old. Um, but a lot of personal injury firms and lawyers will tell you that the firm makes 80% of their money on 20% of the cases. I think that's called like it's that's called like the Toretto creative principle principle. So the firm makes 80% of their money on 20% of their cases. And I think that will become true for us at some point in the future. I think, you know, as our larger cases continue to mature and they get further into litigation, maybe that becomes true. But for all the results that our firm has had in the last two years, I'm not going to tell the exact number, but it's been a lot. I mean, the largest cases and the largest fees is probably less, if you combined all of them, would probably be less than 3% of the firm's total requirement. And that's just because I think our systems, especially on the smaller than mid-sized cases, are so refined and so tight that every single day when we check the mail, it's a lot of policy limit settlements coming in every single day. And that's really what keeps the firm alive, but also allows us to be profitable. Um, so I'm very excited for the Coreto. It's called the Corto Curve. Is that what it's called? Principle, I believe. I'm really excited for the way to come where, you know, 80% of the revenue is built on 20% of the cases because that means that we're doing really great all the way around. But I just think that we're still kind of coming around that corner. And I think the the point that I'm trying to say is if you are looking to start your own firm, it's not necessary for you to have a lot of cases or only have a few big cases. You can do it in different ways and you can be successful in different ways. Um, it's about kind of figuring out how to manage your operation in a way that allows you to, you know, do well for yourself and so your firm.

Jason Lazarus 51:23

I'm curious, what is the next thing that you guys feel like you have to get right ed KRLG for the

What does KRLG need to get right next to keep growing without breaking the model?

Jason Lazarus 51:30

firm to keep growing without breaking the model that has worked thus far?

Austin Kurtz 51:35

I think you've got to scale Brian and I. We're doing it, but it's really hard to do. I think that like we have started the process by bringing in talented senior lawyers to start scaling us helping mentor our younger lawyers. That's like one part of it. Um we started to spend differently in marketing to start scaling a little bit of that. We've tried to build out operationally um managers in different sections to start scaling a bit of that. I think that's the biggest hurdle any uh law firm goes from. But uh I I mean for us right now, we are at a point that like what we're doing is working um really well and the firm is being very successful. But if we want to reach levels about this, it's continuing to scale. Um and I know that's such a simple answer. Hey, how do you get bigger? Oh, scale. But like that, that really is I like in its simplest terms, scaling us is um the the most successful.

Brian Riley 52:38

And I I think also like for Austin and I, and this is going to be the hardest, probably the hardest thing for us to do, make a decision on, is like I was saying earlier, like the prelit lawyers get really badass at prelit, the litigators get really good at litigation, the trial lawyers get really good at trial. And like right now, Austin and I are, in my opinion, and the the data will you know support it, but we are definitely really good at working cases and you know being in rainmakers. But in between that, we're also trying to be marketers and we're trying to be business people and we're trying to become better trial lawyers. And I think at some point in the future, you know, basically letting the reins go on one of those areas is gonna be helpful for us to continue to grow the firm too. So for instance, if it's me, you know, basically if Austin doing fully marketing and me doing fully networking and business development, um, do I think that is ever going to happen? Probably not, to be honest. I just think we're too in tune local cases and all that kind of stuff going on. But being able to maybe scale out of some of the cases and give a little bit more trust to our team to handle some of the cases and situations would be helpful for the firm to have a uh two people at the top that are, you know, actually trying to push the business in a hey, let's get more cases pipe way versus let's just keep keep our results going up. Which isn't a bad thing. I mean, I'm not I mean, I love getting big results. It's just it's a different way of scaling.

Jason Lazarus 54:10

Well, scaling any business is a challenge. Having, you know, started Synergy and a long time ago, 2008, with five people and now over a hundred people. I mean, the changes and iterations over time are just, you know, massive. And you realize at some point it it outgrows you as someone who started it, served as, you know, CEO. And, you know, so I mean that there's there's seasons, but the challenge always is getting that scaling right and being a good steward of the direction of the company for all the people that are depending on you to lead it in the right direction, right? Because, you know, it's not as you guys anymore. Now you've got a whole bunch of people that are depending on you uh for their livelihoods as well. So it becomes very important how you make those decisions and ultimately then deliver your services to important stuff. But you guys have been really generous with your time. Don't want to take up uh really much more, but I want to ask you both a question that I always ask to end the podcast. It's very open-ended, so you can answer it however you guys want to. Austin, I'll I'll ask you first. I I know that you from doing some research, your your dad, I believe, was a lawyer. And so you come from that background, you've you've got this interest in tech, and I'm just curious what is your view uh where you sit today as a trial lawyer?

Austin Kurtz 55:36

So I think that like one of the topics that is uh so hot right now is that like the common law firm is ending. I think that that's like this this point that everyone's making is like we're just it's just gonna go away. And I just disagree vehemently. I think that tech is making lawyers better, and I think uh it's allowing a greater access to justice. And I don't think it's the beginning of the end. Um, I think it's uh a new opportunity for this to get even better. Um and one of the things we've seen in our business over the last several years is big ships take a long time to turn, right? We always say that like a we're not a mega yacht. It doesn't take us a lifetime to turn the boat around. We're a speedboat. We just, hey, you know, we don't want to do that. We rip it the other way and go. And I think you're gonna have a lot more speedboats out there. Um and this access to justice is gonna increase. And uh, you know, uh, I don't think it's the beginning of the end. So the end is not near, and everyone who wants to keep saying it needs to chill out.

Jason Lazarus 56:35

Brian, same question. Um, I I'm curious because you're you're very different background, but you know, you guys have built this firm together, and I'm curious, you know, about your view as where you sit today.

Brian Riley 56:48

I mean, kind of going back to what Austin said earlier, right? Like I think we're both men of sequel needs and means, and we we we have a passion for um helping injured people and helping out on the cases. And if for some reason there was a great consolidation and all of a sudden there's only four law firms in the United States, um, do I see myself in Austin actually working for those law firms? Probably not, to be honest. Like I think we'll probably spill off and do our own thing and you know, try to get in the courtroom and you know, make some noise uh that way, um, and and probably pull away from you know the traditional norms of just kind of fall falling in line with everybody else. And that's what I think, you know, honestly, if that ends up happening, then I'm excited for it because I think we will find a way to market ourselves differently and we'll continue to grow our skill set in a way where we'll it'll be undeniable how much, you know, people in other firms will need us to represent them in cases. Thankfully for myself and Austin, time's on our side. You know, we're in our mid-30s, and um, there's a lot of big law firm owners out there that don't necessarily have time on their side as much as we do. And maybe they're the ones who are speaking loudly about the great consolidation and you know, everyone, everything kind of imploding and changing. And I just don't really see it that way because for me, it's all about being um flexible and you know, realizing that if let's say there is no more car accidents in five years or 10 years because there's automated vehicles, well, great, I'm the next product liability attorney that best products liability attorney in Arizona next to Austin number two. But like that's not happening right now. So until that happens, I don't have to be flexible for it. I can just continue to increase my skill set, learn, uh, work with Austin, become a better attorney, and uh hopefully just help people in the process.

Jason Lazarus 58:49

Well, thanks to both of you for your time. Can you guys briefly just give an overview of the firm where you have your practice areas? And if somebody's got a case they want to refer to you as in your jurisdiction, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

Austin Kurtz 59:04

Yeah, we are uh as simple as it goes, krlg.com. You can find us. We'll do any sort of uh injury case um in Arizona. We uh love referral work, we're passionate about it. You can find us on Instagram at KRLG as well.

Jason Lazarus 59:20

Well, thanks again, Austin and Brian, for joining me today on Tri Law Review, and we'll see everybody on the next episode. Thank you. Thank you. If today's episode gave you a new perspective on how your firm operates or sparked a useful idea, consider sharing it with a colleague and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss future conversations with leaders across the personal injury space. Tri Law Review is brought to you by Synergy, a strategic operations partner helping personal injury law firms resolve healthcare leans more efficiently. If you're looking to accelerate case flow and allow your team to focus on high-level legal work that moves cases faster, consider partnering with Synergy. I'm Jason Lazarus, and I'll see you in the next episode.